


The Odyssey

by CluckyTheUnicorn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, I'd like to say slow burn but I'm not entirely sure, Lots and lots of smut, M/M, Post-Apocalyptic Themes, chakra is substituted for energy bending, eventually, first fanfic, i promise smut, inspired by alto's odyssey, play it if you haven't its really good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24587377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CluckyTheUnicorn/pseuds/CluckyTheUnicorn
Summary: A hundred years ago, the world ended in scorching sand. Borders were forgotten and only one vast land existed - The Great Desert. Naruto is one of many sand surfers trained to ride the endless dunes in search of medicinal plants to help cure the mirage sickness plaguing his village and her allies. However, what started out as a typical supply run in the desert with his friend Gaara, takes a turn for the weird when they encounter pale-faced humans with disturbingly bright red eyes. They weren't just standing around, of course. They were engaged in battle with an enormous nine-tailed beast.With a storm at their backs and unknown enemies to face, Naruto's odyssey promises action, adventure (duh) and lots and lots of s.m.u.t. as all fanfiction should.Huzzah!
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Inuzuka Kiba, Naruto/Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi/Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	1. When life hinges on a flower. A pink one that glows.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for choosing to read "The Odyssey." 
> 
> I'd like to warn you that I'm making this story up as I go and will change/add tags as and when things develop. The entire fic is inspired by this mobile game called Alto's Odyssey - its really beautiful and aesthetically pleasing and it'll definitely help give you some context (but it isn't absolutely necessary). Check it out if you get the chance.
> 
> Also, this is my first ever attempt at fanfiction (even though I've been living off ao3 for years) and I've been mulling over this idea for months now. So *gulps* hopefully I do good. Reviews and comments are always welcome, so don't hold back!
> 
> Enjoy~

Chapter One

When life hinges on a flower. A pink one that glows.

* * *

Naruto sometimes thought despairingly that the heat was unbearable. The winds were almost always dry in Sunagakure with the occasional gold dust getting in his eyes and other orifices. At least it was always interesting to get home, change and make small money off of whatever falls off. 

As he trudged up a particularly harsh sandy slope, Naruto couldn’t help but think longingly of Konoha - the last Oasis left - and her lush vegetation and crystal clear springs. Gripping his sandboard tighter, he willed himself to take longer strides. 

_It’ll all be worth it._ _I can’t fail them._

After a few more minutes of hard climbing, he arrived at the top. A particularly strong gust of wind blew back his faded cotton hood to reveal bright blond hair dusted nearly brown with sand. Naruto quickly straightened it and adjusted his goggles, scanning the terrain. A two hundred meter drop extended further into miles and miles of sand dunes which seemed to be ebbing and flowing in the heat like ocean waves. Dark clouds decked the horizon. There was a storm coming but Grandma Chiyo had assured him that it was going to be mild. 

Naruto grinned. Not that it mattered much.

He felt the wind rising, whipping his dark coloured scarf around as he mounted the sturdy sandboard and adjusted the straps on his feet. 

Naruto yanked his scarf up until it sat just beneath his goggles and angled half of the board over the edge of the gigantic sand dune. 

“Let’s do this.”

He pushed off and surrendered himself to gravity. His stomach lurched, bringing with it a sudden rush of adrenaline as he whooshed down the steep slope, a blur of white and brown with his scarf flying behind him. Naruto narrowed his eyes, spotting a few rocks in the distance. He maneuvered around them expertly - left, hard left, right - until his momentum carried him straight over the first big dune in his path. He flipped in mid-air with one hand on the board and whooped as he landed, speeding down the slope without a second’s delay. 

Yup. Surviving in a dried up wasteland was shit unless you knew how to ride the dunes. This alone counted as really and truly _living_ in Naruto’s book. Some nights there was hardly enough food to get by, others saw people succumbing to disease. But out here? Out here, in the gritty scorching desert winds, Nartuo felt more alive than ever.

He wasn’t alone of course. Gaara wouldn’t be far behind.

There had been a meeting with the elders before the two of them were scheduled to make a run for lotus flowers; which was the only cure they had for the chronic mirage sickness plaguing Konoha. As village chief, Gaara was duty bound to attend - no matter how much he loathed the long discussions and incessant bickering that the elders had a bad habit of falling into. 

Naruto swerved right to avoid a thinly jagged rock jutting out of the sand and wondered, for the umpteenth time, why the great desert had so many rocks still standing when most of them had had the decency to crumble to dust years ago. Clicking his tongue in slight annoyance, he lowered his upper body until it was nearly parallel to the sandboard to cut through the sandy gale. 

As he tore down the slope, navigating the dunes expertly, he was suddenly joined by the loud susurration of another sand-boarder. He glanced behind his left shoulder and spotted someone not far behind him. If the giant gourd strapped to his back was any suggestion, he’d venture a guess that Gaara had finally decided to join him. 

Naruto nodded and gestured the number four with his gloved hands.

_Four miles till next peak._

Gaara nodded and they continued on their way. 

The roaring winds made it nearly impossible for anything to be heard so communication had to be done through gestures and mimes. Some keep it simple and stick to the manual like Neji. And then there’s Kiba with his full-body gesticulating. 

Naruto chuckled behind his mask at one particularly memorable moment when he gestured himself off his sandboard and right into a cactus. Poor Hinata was stuck pulling thorns out of his cheeks (tattooed or otherwise) for the entire day. Naruto and the others never let him live it down of course. ‘Cactus-butt’ would be his official title for the next ten years. 

A minute or two later, Naruto’s speed slowed down as he smoothly ascended a blunt slope. He pivoted his hips to the side and brought the sandboard to a lateral 180 degree halt, spraying sand. Gaara followed suit and stopped next to him. 

As usual, he wasn’t wearing any protective gear. His pale face and deep set, kohl-lined eyes stood naked and blank as they looked upon Naruto. 

“The wind’s picking up,” he stated. 

Naruto paused. “How the hell do you not get sand everywhere?” He asked incredulously, not for the first time.

Gaara snorted. “I’m not prissy about it like you are.”

“Hey! I’m not prissy about it. It just gets _everywhere_ while we sandboard out here and you, Sir Eyebrowless, always come back squeaky clean!”

Gaara rolled his eyes and ran his hands through short crimson hair. The tattoo of the Japanese kanji for ‘love’ stood out starkly against his pale skin. 

“Shukaku’s curse makes it easy.”

“Ah. Right. Forgot about that,” Naruto mumbled. Shukaku was a tailed beast tied to the land of Gaara’s ancestors. Unfortunately, that selfsame desert land now extended to all parts of the continent. Borders had been lost since the sand laid waste to healthy soil nearly a hundred years ago and all that remained were the names of the villages, which lay scattered and divided. The ones where farming was possible were called oases. 

The curse, however, was limited to Gaara and his kin. Sand was their lifeforce, was their livelihood and their way of life has become quintessential to any and all survivors.

“Well. Too bad we can’t all live off of the magic sand in your gourd,” said Naruto, grinning. “You got yourself topped off before getting here right?”

Gaara nodded.

“Good. We’ve got a long way ahead of us.” Naruto pulled out an old tin box from one of his pant pockets. Rattling its contents casually, he asked “Want one? Our next pit stop won’t be for another fifty miles or so.”

“Water marbles?” Gaara asked, unstrapping his feet and hefting his sandboard under his arm. 

“Yup,” said Naruto and popped the lid open. Gaara peered inside and let out a low whistle. Inside lay twenty translucent indigo coloured marbles with a stark white center and a sheen akin to hard candy. 

“Looks like Sakura outdid herself,” he said and picked one up, examining it. 

“Oh yeah,” said Naruot cheerily. “She’s managed to make a concentrate equivalent to about two litres of water and pulse energy in these bad boys. Enough to keep us hydrated and energized for three hours.”

“Is that what the white center is?” Gaara asked curiously and Naruto nodded. 

“I brought ten more for Kankuro to tinker with, along with the recipe. Tsunade’s compliments.”

Gaara smiled faintly. “Tell her she doesn’t owe us anything anymore.”

Naruto grinned. “You can tell her yourself when we get back, Sabaku.” Just then, a bright flash of lightning drew his gaze skywards and a strong gust of wind pulled at his scarf. The dark clouds he’d seen earlier were a lot closer than before; dry and moving quickly with the wind. Another lightning storm.

“C’mon. We don’t wanna get caught standing still when the storm hits.”

Both men began strapping themselves to their sandboards. Naruto popped a marble in his mouth and immediately felt the cool, neutral taste of water envelope his tongue. The underlying buzz of energy sharpened his senses as he adjusted his goggles and scarf. 

Gaara nodded once when he was ready and they kicked off without delay, skimming down the dune and into the storm.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Remember to comment/review etc.  
> The plot is a big jumbled mess in my head rn but I feel like I'm finding my way one thread at a time. Lol. Like in The Nutcracker. Ugh Keira Knightley is <3 - even when she's a cotton-candy haired, squeaky voiced megalomaniac. Hahaha.
> 
> I shall post chapter 2 sometime next week~
> 
> Lots of rainbows and sparkles for ye,  
> Clucky


	2. White...people?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the kudos! I didn't think I'd get even one! <3
> 
> Chapter two ahoy! Man, this was a long one.  
> Naruto and Gaara get their first glimpse of the strange red-eyed humans. Y'all know who I'm talking about. Haha. 
> 
> P.S. Please let me know if I've written "desert" as "dessert" because I'm feeling drowsy af and couldn't tell the difference when I read through it just now. Plus I'm really craving something sweet. Ugh.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

They had ridden for about thirty minutes when it started getting harder to see where they were going. The winds were kicking up sand in every direction, threatening to both obscure their vision completely and push them off course. Naruto gritted his teeth as his sandboard shifted again, leaning left and he straightened it with a grunt, continuing to speed down the sandy desert slope. Quickly checking for rocks in his path, he glanced back at Gaara and made a slicing motion with his right hand. He took the hint and veered right until he was directly behind Naruto. Naruto took a quick breath through the mask and joined his hands in a thundering clap in front of him. The rough gritty winds immediately parted to create a vacuum of stillness. The only sound was the rustle of their sandboards, suddenly loud in the silence.

He let out the breath he was holding. “Remember the rendezvous point at the cactus gorge?”

“Yeah. We can cross it and get out of this storm,” said Gaara quickly catching on.

Naruto nodded. The cactus gorge was located due north of their location where there was a curious fissure in the desert for as long as he could remember. The storm was coming in from the north-east. If they could get over the gorge, they’d be able to bypass the storm entirely.

“Last one there’s rotten camel meat!”

And with that Naruto released his palms and collapsed the temporary vacuum. He felt something flick the back of his head just before the winds hit and grinned. No matter how cold Gaara behaved, he was just as competitive as Naruto was. Besides, what was the fun of surviving a lightning storm if there was no one to race through it with?

He swept his arms backwards and felt the wind shift, propelling him forward. Naruto was barely able to see five feet in front of him and the dunes was going by faster than ever. A bright flash of lightning blinded him momentarily. He saw Gaara’s silhouette pass him by in the dusky gloom and blinked. Gaara hit a bump in the dune and flipped his board at a slant as he landed, now facing Naruto and signing,

_Try not to get fried, Naruto._

Naruto grinned and flipped him off, positioning his torso parallel to the board to help pile on speed. They whooshed up a steep dune and Naruto once again swung his arms backward to give himself a wind boost. He zipped over the dune, the momentum taking him far above the ground and entered into a double backflip in mid-air. At this height, he was a lot closer to all that crackling energy zapping the ground. He continued turning and time slowed down as he suddenly felt heat sizzle very near his right cheek.

And then the sky exploded in a roaring peal of thunder.

Naruto touched the ground, breathing shallowly through his mask and continued his descent. Thin bolts of lightning crackled down on the sand, briefly joining the earth and sky in threads of pure energy as he veered this way and that to avoid getting roasted. He felt a phantom presence at the back of his head just before something hit him hard, causing him to almost lose his balance.

Naruto grunted and signed _Sorry, couldn’t help myself,_ knowing Gaara, or at least the part of him hovering about near his head, would see it. Something grainy pinched his ear and he saw sand manifest into the shape of a hand before him signing _Three miles to jump._

Naruto flashed a thumbs up and concentrated on the minefield before him. The spots where lightning struck ahead were creating fulgurites in the sand. Most of them break from the force of the sandboard but some of them were so hardened, they were almost rock-like.

He would’ve been seriously scared for his life. If he were alone.

Naruto felt Gaara’s energy snaking about half a mile forward and suddenly a thin veil of sand, spread about two or three meters wide, rushed forward. Naruto squinted to see all the small obstacles in their way shatter into fine dust. A few minutes later, they were coming up on the gorge. This far ahead, the air was clearing of the lightning and dusty gales. True to its name, cacti stubs of all shapes and sizes dotted its rim. There was one shot, one clear path and only a split second to execute their jump.

Gaara sent out another short pulse of sand and cleared any cacti in their way. Naruto immediately crunched down on his water marble, breaking off a tiny piece. He felt his body shudder as a thin blanket of energy enveloped him. Naruto brought his palms together until they were nearly touching, never taking his eyes off the rim of the gorge. Gaara was, once again, directly behind him. A sharp burning sensation in his hands prompted Naruto to swing his arms backwards. This time a bluish white light burst out, propelled them forward to hit a rocky ramp, launching themselves off it.

A third party witnessing this jump, who had seen the world in its prime, would’ve said that a rather smallish, glowing whale with a long tail was trying its hand at gorge-jumping.

As it was, Naruto had brought himself and Gaara up and over the fissure. They were almost across to the other side when Naruto felt something yank his scarf and catch his throat in a vice. As his body did a complete 180 degree flip, he saw Gaara swing ahead of him, letting go of his scarf as he summoned a wave of sand and landed smoothly on the other side.

Naruto fumbled for a split second before righting his equilibrium and getting his sandboard under him. He landed unceremoniously on hard ground and rolled a few times before stopping with a grunt on his back.

Blinking dazedly, he peeled the goggles from his face and yanked down his mask.

Gaara peered down at him and smirked, “Looks like you’re rotten camel meat.”

Naruto scowled. “That’s the last time I ever help you jump over a gorge.”

“You do realize I have powers too?”

“Yeah but,” Naruto grunted as he unstrapped his feet and stood, “mine doesn’t go nuts if racoon-butt isn’t appeased every goddamn year.”

Gaara paused. In all his twenty three years of life, Naruto seemed to be the only one who could badmouth an ancient magical being without giving a shit about the repercussions. He shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that yet. It isn’t due for another three months.”

“Mm.” Naruto adjusted his scarf and said grumpily, “You couldn’t lay off the scarf, could you?”

Gaara snickered at that and looked around to get his bearings. He nodded in the direction they had come from, “Looks like we’re safe for now.”

Naruto followed his gaze to see dark, lightning-heavy clouds drifting parallel to them in the distance and narrowed his eyes. “Wait a second.”

He pulled out a compass from one of his pant pockets and clicked it open. Yup, they were headed west as planned. But the storm wasn’t continuing south-west like he’d thought. It was heading upwards. Naruto looked back at the comparatively darker sky beyond the gorge. The clouds seemed to be getting closer. Almost as though...

“It's following us,” Naruto muttered.

Gaara raised an eyebrow at him. “I told you not to call him racoon-butt, didn’t I?”

“Oh shove off Gaara, he doesn’t give a shit. Besides, since when can sand-breath control the weather?” asked Naruto, gesturing exasperatedly at the sky.

“You have a point,” murmured Gaara. “Let’s maintain our course. The flowers should be in the drought lands north of here.”

Gaara hoisted his sandboard over his shoulder and looked up when Naruto didn’t move. He was still staring at the darkening sky.

“Naruto?”

“Something isn’t sitting right with me,” he muttered and pulled his hood down. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair, a whisper on its tails. He closed his eyes and stayed absolutely still.

_Beware...Indra’s kin…_

Thunder rumbled, low and lingering. If that wasn’t an omen, Naruto didn’t know what was.

He stood still for a few seconds longer, listening for any more cryptic whispers. When none came his way, he shook his head and looked at Gaara who was staring at him consideringly.

“What did it say?”

Naruto sighed heavily. “Nothing that makes sense.” He hoisted his sandboard on his shoulder and nodded, “Let’s go. I don’t know what that storm is but something tells me we need to stay ahead of it.”

"Agreed," said Gaara and they began trekking across the uneven rock. The landscape ahead of them was flat, in complete contrast to the ever-changing dunes they had come from. The evening sun was sinking leisurely over the horizon casting everything in a rust-coloured shadow. Tall, dry looking cacti spotted the land. After walking for a good one hour, they arrived at a rocky crag. Below it, extending for miles and miles, lay cracked, fissured earth - the drought lands.

There used to be settlements here before the heat sucked everything dry. When Naruto and Kiba had come here two years ago along with Gaara’s people, there had been remains of goat pens and markings in the soil suggesting fields and farming. Now, there was nothing but a few scattered pieces of wood lying dead on the parched earth.

The sun was sinking lower. Naruto shielded his eyes and scanned the landscape. “Looks like we made it just in time,” he said and patted Gaara on the back.

The crag lowered and merged with the flatlands about five or so miles to the right, but the fastest way down was sliding down the concave rockface. Naruto and Gaara began strapping themselves up in tandem. Naruto adjusted his goggles and gave Gaara a casual salute before tipping his sandboard down and making his descent. All sandsurfers had their sandboards reinforced with stout-energy so that they were extra durable. This meant that surfing on sand and surfing down rocky cliffs weren’t all that different. The friction and resistance increased by a fraction and it was bumpier than the smooth surface of the dunes. Control was a bitch too.

Otherwise, it was just as fun. They streaked down the rockface, parallel to each other and reached the ground in a matter of seconds. Dismounting and hoisting their sandboards over their shoulders, they began walking over the long-dead land.

It wasn’t the first time Naruto had seen it, but every time he was here, no matter who he was with, he’d feel inexplicably grim. It probably had something to do with all the crumbling animal bones lying around.

He never voiced it out loud but sometimes, when he was in a mood like this, he would wonder if Konoha’s fertile lands would suddenly give up on them. If one day he would wake up to find no one ploughing in the fields because there was nothing to grow, or no one milking the camels because they’d been killed to feed hungry mouths. His father and Chief Sarutobi had managed to gather enough clans with a variety of energy-bending abilities to grow food using only water and, a few years ago, they had even grown a couple of trees in fertile rich soil.

Naruto wondered darkly if this was all just a temporary salve on a wound that never stops burning.

“The sun’s set,” said Gaara, snapping Naruto out of his macabre thoughts.

“Right.” Naruto reached into one of the pockets in his faded cotton tunic and pulled out a palm-sized transparent pouch. “Let’s get those flowers.”

The flowers were hybrid lotuses that let out a gentle pink glow in the dark. This made them easier to spot at night and can therefore only be picked under moonshine. Grandma Chiyo had once told Naruto that the flowers had evolved to grow by absorbing heat from sunlight and ice from moonbeam - turning both these energies into the nutrients it needed to thrive.

The flowers had been a simple gesture of goodwill, love and celebration when Naruto was a child. But now, they were quintessential to their survival. Its unique properties helped ground a human’s psyche from constantly drifting in the Mirage.

“There,” said Gaara, pointing to a spot a few meters away. Squinting, Naruto could see a pale pink glow coming out from one of the many dry cracks in the earth.

“Nice,” he said softly and they made their way to it. “Keep watch, bud,” said Naruto kneeling down next to it. The desert wasn’t home to many, but the cool of the night drew out some pretty unfriendly creatures - creatures who were just as starved as the earth and desperate for food.

Gaara had once fought off a large wyrm while Naruto was scavenging for some wild fig cactus. They were long, ribbed and had only a mouth with rows and rows of teeth. Not to mention the slime. Oh the slime - both inside and out - was enough to make a man gag.

Naruto shuddered at the memory and focused on the task at hand. He parted the crumbling earth gently, revealing the small lotus. Its petals were unfurled, smooth to the touch and pale pink. At its center was a warm sunny glow, pollen shimmering like gold dust.

Naruto looked around for its short root-like stem, which was the only part that didn’t glow. He spotted it embedded in the dirt wall. It was important to keep the flower intact along with either the whole or part of its stem, so that it could remain fresh in the transparent insulation pouch Sakura had given him. The pouch had been weaved with energy in its walls which trapped moonlight in it. The flower would then absorb this, emptying the pouch's reserves. When sunlight hits the emptied pouch, it would store that as well for the flower to then consume.

For this to work, the stem must not be damaged and the pouch should always be kept exposed to the elements.

Naruto had done this countless times before and now was no different. He pulled out thin, long tweezers and a small chisel. Working by the flower’s glow, he began methodically scraping the dirt around the stem, holding the sturdy plant in place gently with the tweezers. Once he’d gotten most of the dirt out of the way, he slowly pulled out the stem.

Pulling the flower up, careful not to get it caught in the cracked earth, he placed it in the pouch insulate. Once he’d pulled the strings shut, he watched as the stem curled upwards and placed itself on one of the walls of the pouch. The flower flashed a bright pink in the darkness for an instant before returning to its pastel glow.

“Never gets old,” said Naruto, grinning. He walked over to Gaara. “Where’s the-”

A sudden scuttling sound made him stop short. Gaara, who was a few feet ahead of him, gestured to Naruto to stop moving. He signed _We’re not alone._

Naruto frowned as he tied the pouch to his tunic belt and scanned his surroundings for some movement.

A moment of stillness.

There it was again! The sound of small feet scuttling about near the crag. In Naruto’s experience, ‘small’ didn’t always mean ‘harmless.’ He was on guard and so was Gaara, judging from his stiff posture.

Gaara pointed up ahead and began walking towards the sound. Naruto followed. The scuttling was getting louder now, more frantic. Out of habit, he swirled the water marble around in his mouth and drew a thread of energy from it in preparation for an attack, if the situation called for it. He felt Gaara doing the same.

Suddenly, without warning, a deafening roar split the air. Naruto flinched at the volume and looked up just in time to see a small furry creature bounding past them with a loud bark.

“What the fuck was that?” Gaara asked incredulously.

“Do you mean the small cuddly bundle of hugs or the big one?”

“Both.”

“Can you tell where it came from?”

Gaara closed his eyes wordlessly and listened. Right on cue, there came another thundering roar.

“Fuck!” Naruto clamped his hands on his ears and looked at Gaara expectantly.

“About eight hundred meters south of our position,” said Gaara promptly. “Did you hear anything else?”

When Naruto shook his head, Gaara’s expression darkened. “We’re not alone out here. I heard people. From the sounds of it, they were fighting whatever this thing is.”

“How many?”

“Hard to be sure.”

“Are you sure they weren’t being attacked?”

Gaara frowned. “Those weren’t screams I heard, Naruto. They were sounds of exertion.”

Just then, an ear-splitting shriek echoed their way followed by a loud crack of something large hitting the earth.

Naruto raised his eyebrows at Gaara who sniffed, “I stand corrected.”

“Let’s go help them out,” said Naruto, double checking the knots on the pouch insulate and fastening his sandboard on his back. Just as he was about to break into a run, Gaara grabbed his arm.

“Are we sure we should get involved, Naruto?” he asked in a low voice. “We came here to find as many lotus flowers as we can and return. That’s all. We can’t risk getting injured.”

Naruto paused. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “But aren't you curious? If we’ve found another tribe, we should lend them a hand. They might consider joining us at Konoha or Sunagakure or they’d at least owe us a favour.”

Gaara considered Naruto’s words for a second. “...Alright. But we do recon first. If it looks too dangerous, we turn around and go back the way we came. Understand?”

Naruto scoffed. “What, you pulling rank on me, Chief?”

Gaara smirked, “If I have to, Uzumaki.” He hefted his sandboard and nodded, “Let’s go.”

They broke into a quick jog, the water marbles replenishing their stamina with every breath. The earth was rising up ahead and shifting into loose sand once again. After trekking up and down a few gentle slopes, they were back in the dunes once again. As they got closer, they were greeted by the unmistakable sounds of battle. Another thunderous roar and the ground shook for a split-second. Naruto did not have a good feeling about this. Lightning flashed in the corner of his eye and he glanced up to see dark clouds gathering directly above. The storm had caught up to them.

He exchanged an uneasy glance with Gaara as they began climbing up a particularly steep sand dune. Once they’d reached the top, Gaara put out his arm to stop him, kneeling down. Naruto followed suit and turned to look at the scene before him.

There, set against the dark, void-like backdrop of the desert was an enormous beast with one...two... _nine_ tails. Surrounding the beast were black-clad humans, all with equally dark hair and-

Naruto removed his goggles and rubbed his eyes hastily. White? They had pale white skin that stood out starkly against the darkness of night. Pale skin under a scorching, merciless sun? That doesn't look right. 

He felt Gaara clutch his shoulder in a vice grip. “Their eyes-” he said haltingly.

And it was then that Naruto realized that each and every one of them had bright red eyes. He hadn’t noticed at first because they were moving around so fast - bobbing and weaving, dodging the giant creature’s tails and claws.

Looking at the beast closely, Naruto realized that it was a giant fox of some kind-

An ear-splitting roar shook the earth yet again.

 _A seriously pissed off monster fox_ , he thought wryly.

“Wait, nine-tails?” Naruto asked in a low voice. “Gaara, you don’t think-?”

“Yeah,” said Gaara grimly. “This is out of our hands, Naruto. We can’t afford to get involved with another tailed beast.”

Naruto frowned slightly and looked back at the battle beneath him. There were bodies strewn about, dark blood oozing from severed limbs and broken necks. There must have been twenty or more people who had begun the battle but now there were only five left, and it didn’t look as though they were planning on running.

Naruto’s frown deepened as one of the white people got some distance between him and the beast, opened his mouth wide and let out a roaring blaze of fire straight at the creature’s chest. Stunned, it took a step back, its gigantic feet sending a shudder through the earth.

A woman yelled, “Now! Bind it!”

But as two of them approached with what looked like thin glowing beams of dark purple light, the nine-tailed fox shook its head and swiped at them with its gigantic claws. It caught both in the chest and they were thrown away like ragdolls.

Naruto gritted his teeth and mounted his sandboard. Without waiting to see if Gaara would follow, he pushed off down the sand dune summoning a gust of wind to aid his descent.

Gaara froze, stupefied once again at Naruto’s impulsiveness.

“Here we go again,” he sighed and followed Naruto’s lead down into the fray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, please review and comment. Let me know what you'd like to see further in this story and I'll definitely consider adding it in.  
> Chapter 3 will be out next week!
> 
> Lots of rainbows and sparkles for ye,  
> Clucky


End file.
